Jackie Earle Haley strikes fear into the hearts and dreams of movie goers with the rebirth of Wes Craven’s a Nightmare on Elm Street.  26 years and 8 films later Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes productions set out to create a fresh take on the film and its famed villain.

IMDB Synopsis: A re-imagining of the horror icon Freddy Krueger, a serial-killer who wields a glove with four blades embedded in the fingers and kills people in their dreams, resulting in their death in reality

When I was a kid I was always horrified by Freddy Krueger and being Mexican means I had seen all the movies before I was out of grade school.  There is just something about Mexican parents taking their kids to see scary movies they are obviously not ready for.  I guess it just makes it easier to get your kids to do stuff without beating them.  You don’t do your homework Freddy Krueger will come and get you.  As I grew older Freddy became more and more comical than scary.  Robert Englund’s portrayal was so charismatic that by the time Freddy V.S. Jason came around I just wasn’t scared of him anymore.  So I think introducing Freddy Krueger to a new generation is a good idea, parents need something to scare their children because emotional abuse is better than physical abuse.

REVIEW: The film doesn’t really give you time to get attached to the characters before Freddy starts offing them one by one.  This actually works to the films advantage because it keeps you strapped in suspense and there is no lull point where the film drags on.  The cast is pretty well rounded and looks like your normal set of suburban teens instead of all of them being ridiculously hot.  One difference I enjoyed from the original was the absence of hormone raging teens.  Anytime someone got naked or was about to have sex, it was an automatic death sentence in the original film.  So it was nice to see them not go down the stereotypical road for cheap thrills. All in all the film sticks pretty close to the original story only swapping out a few characters.

I enjoyed the special effects where the dream world would over lap the real world in a Silent Hill kind of way.  Jackie Earle Haley also does a great job in his portrayal of Freddy Krueger but I was not so much a fan of the make-up.  While they tried to go for a more realistically burned face the skin looks so melted that there is hardly any detail in close ups.

Accomplished Music Video Director Samuel Bayer does a pretty good job making you jump and keeping you in suspense in his first feature film debut.  There is one scene that pays homage to the original where one of the characters is being thrown around by an invisible force but, unfortunately, it comes off unintentionally funny.  Other than that most of the scares are well crafted and mislead your knowledge of typical scary movies.

Overall I enjoyed this film. I was so happy that it was genuinely scary and few times it even made me jump. That’s all you can really ask for in a horror movie.  Most horror film made today are hardly, if at all, scary.  This movie may not win any Oscars but it does what it is suppose to do.  If you’re a hardcore Nightmare on Elm St fan this might not be for you, especially if you try to compare it to the original.  But if you’re just a fan of horror films and looking for a few good jumps and scares then I strongly recommend this movie.

Grade: B-

Check out are interviews with the cast of a Nightmare on Elm St.

Jackie Earle Haley

Rooney Mara and Kyle Gallner

Katie Cassidy and Thomas Dekker

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